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My Journal - SpiNips


SpiNips

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Hello! This is my 90 days game-free post (I made a similiar one on r/Stopgaming too). Quitting gaming has lead to huge change in my life.

Little background story. This is actually my second time trying to quit. I was able to go 88 days game free the last time. I relapsed for five days but realized that I'm better off without games. The relapse was important since it sealed the deal with my previous decision.

The second attempt to quit gaming went a lot smoother than the first one. The first time I hadn't sought new hobbies I was pretty much stuck home watching videos. I was feeling depressed and powerless. The second time I made sure to focus on new activities and habits, and it has really payed out! I got a job for a month, started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and begun to read books. Suddenly I was busy and not doing nothing all day long. My self confidence started to improve rapidly. No longer did I have to fight with the counter, the days just flew by.

These things have helped me and I hope that they will help you too!

  • Keeping a journal! My journal helps me understand my situation. Writing things and feeling on paper makes them feel easier to handle.
  • Books. Really didn't know what to expect first. For instance I thought that reading books about social skills was going to somehow turn me into an unnatural weirdo. I made the decision to give them a shot. Turned out that my stereotypes from self-help books were completely and utterly wrong. They are Awesome!
  • Having hobbies and projects keeping myself busy helps me. I don't mean that packing my calendar full of stuff 24/7 would be beneficial for me but having things to do helps me feel progress.
  • Meditation. I was a bit prejudiced when it comes to meditation too. I guess I was afraid that it will turn me into a person with no feelings. I was wrong once again. It has helped me dealing with troublesome feelings really well!
  • Taking care of my sleeping eating and doing enough sports
  • And last but not least I've got to give a shootout to this website! The people are so awesome here. You guys have given me a myriad of encouragement and advice

I'm definitely going to stick to my Gamequitting journey. It feels as if I have just scratched the surface of this whole thing. My goals currently are to take care of my current good habits and form new ones, to improve my social skills and get better with relationships, and to read more books!

Thank you for reading this and thank you for helping me in this journey. I would like to end this with one of my favourite quote from Duhigg's "The Power of Habit".

Once we choose who we want to be, people grow to the way in which they have been exercised . . . If you believe you can change, if you make it a habit, the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit. The insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs, and becomes automatic, habitual, it's not only real, it starts to seem inevitable.

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Hello!

Today I have been feeling okay. Somehow this day feels like a day where nothing particularly extreme happened, but I'm still going in the right direction.

The Big question now is about setting new goals. I will keep working on my social skills and relationships. I'm going to to work on romantic relationships too. As many of you have suggested meditation, I have dedicated 20 minutes for meditation in the morning. I think I'm going to try meditating in the morning for 40 days and see how it affects me. Thanks Joe!!! I have a long list of books to read (The Slight Edge, Gorilla mindset, Daring Greatly and so on). Really excited to read and learn new things. :^)

Meditation went quite well today. Sitting and breathing comfortably was a bit of an issue, maybe I could try a little shorter chair with a back support.

Today I'm grateful for

  • Music from my favourite childhood films.
  • Seeing the Lunar eclipse
  • Having more time thanks to an easier phase in school
  • Eating well today
  • Having had plenty of sleep
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Hello!

Finally completely finished Dale Carnegie's "How to win Friends and influence people". It's a good book full of good general advice. The most common tip was really being aware of how the person you are interacting with feels. Definitely a good read!

I ordered the Book called "Gorilla mindset". For some reason It just sounded good. The Slight Edge is definitely on my to read list. Maybe I'll order it too.

Grateful for

  • New journals! It's always nice to read stories and find new ideas from others success!
  • The fact that only Ringo is missing; We already have John, George and Paul
  • My snack-habit has proven to be effective. Helps me have more willpower towards the end of the day
  • Blue belt that gave me good advice today
  • The fact that it has been already 88 days since my last relapse. Last time I relapsed on my 88th day. I'm really happy that I did though, since it gave me insight and helped me decide to stick with my conclusion to move on from playing games!

?I'm going on a reading binge once this semester is done! Too many good books being mentioned everywhere.

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Whats up?

Today was a good day! School felt relatively easy. I went out to meet my pals to a suburb. I had a pretty decent conversation with my friend. He is someone who I enjoy hanging with. For some reason it's just a natural sync.

I'm currently reading Dale Carnegie's book "How to stop worrying and start living". Haven't really got into it, but I've heard that it's a good book. The idea of not carrying unnecessary worries on your shoulders doesn't sound bad at all!

Today marks the fourth day of morning meditation. I think I'm a bit calmer throughout the day. For some reason I'm able to calm down during the day by just focusing on my breath similarly to meditation.

Morning is so awesome time to place habits! There are usually all kind distractions and changes in the afternoon which might disturb the consistency of these habits.

My goal is still focusing on social skills and relationships.

Today I'm grateful for

  • Good British tea!
  • Having energy today
  • Bananas! They are tasty and can be eaten quickly
  • Oasis
  • Studying history! It's awesome to learn how we got to this state of world
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Do you have any recommended brands of green tea? I've been drinking a few cups a day to work on my cholesterol.

My house probably goes through 20 bananas a week and there are only 2.25 of us!

History is awesome! My current class is the History of Architecture (Ancient through Renaissance).

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Hello!

I've been a bit unproductive today. I thought that I'd go to a party this evening, but I decided that it's wiser not to go as I had school tomorrow. I'm a tutor-student so I believe it's wiser to be fresh. Plans change, it happens. I've got to just try to make this day as good as I can from now on!

As for green tea, I'm more of a drinker of Black tea so unfortunately I can't really suggest anything. Well, I generally enjoy Clipper's teas!

My meditation was good today. Quite to usual route and result.

Gratitude journal

  • Having nice time with my friends in a cafe
  • Cooking good food!
  • Going to a camp this weekend, always boosts my mood!
  • Being able to talk about thoughts and emotions with friends
  • One of the teachers in my school seems to have made a complete turnaround in how she treats her students! I really appreciate her for acting more friendly towards us!
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Hello!

Whoa! Really enjoyed my time at the camp! Just having fun with friends, eating and drinking really well.

I want to take all that I can from books. Reading is good, but I the kind of a person who also needs some concrete practice. I set a goal for the following week. As Carnegie suggested I will try to live a day at the time. Focusing on just what I'm going to do that day, not worrying about future nor past.

For some reason there has been slight anxiety in my life. I think it's due to my connection to a girl. Im a bit clueless about what to do with her.

Meditation: Its currently my eighth day! I'm doing fairly well. Staring to notice how the "soft focus" feels like.

I'm grateful for:

  • Singing with friends
  • Fresh apples from our yard
  • Meeting new people at the camp
  • Upcoming Holiday. It's already here?!?
  • Improving step-by-step
  • Clih Edited by SpiNips
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Hei SpiNips. I'm just checking out the latest album by Ensiferum. I'm quite a metalhead so Finland is definitely on my radar \m/

I'm also keen on Jujutsu. As soon as I get the chance I'll get on the tatami again and get my black belt and beyond. I'm a red belt now, and I only stopped because I had to move countries.

*Edit* I figured out that a factor of my anxiety might also be the fact that there are too many things I want to do and read and learn. Living "Carpe Diem" is probably good for that too.

Wanting many things can definitely make you anxious. ?Just make sure you get what Horatius intended with "carpe diem"! From Wikipedia: "The ode says that the future is unforeseen and that one should not leave to chance future happenings, but rather one should do all one can today to make one's future better. [...] not to ignore the future, but rather not to trust that everything is going to fall into place for you and taking action for the future today."

Maybe you knew that already but so many people take "carpe diem" for the exact opposite :) It does look to me that you got the right meaning though. Keep going!

And no worries with the girl: you'll figure it out together. Just have a chat with her. Anxiety by definition goes away once you get rid of uncertainty.

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Hello!

Wow! I've felt a lot better today. It's probably due to meditation and living one day at a time. I try not to fight my feelings and it seems to be working out pretty well. I haven't really had time to progress on "How to stop worrying and start living" since I've been busy studying Geography.

Meditation was good today. One more and I'm ready to start the Last part of The Foundation

Today I'm grateful for:

  • Eating fish
  • Having high pressure area over the place where I live due to a cyclone.
  • Gorilla mindset should arrive in 2 days!
  • Learning more about the ancient philosophers! Those dudes are really interesting to study since they have particularly decent points of views.
  • Being able to dim the lights in our house. It improves the atmosphere a lot.
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Hello!

It's awesome to see more journals around here! I've been really busy today, studying and doing some basic chores.

I've progressed on "How to stop worrying and start living" into a section where Carnegie talks about analyzing your worries. It basically follows this kind of pattern:

  • Get the facts about your worry
  • Analyze the facts
  • Decide what to do and act!

It's important to take action along the analyzed material so you won't just waste your time analyzing and ending up doing nothing. It's quite a simple yet effective method.

I ordered two more books today, "Daring Greatly" and "The Slight Edge". I also added meditations by Marcus Aurelius to my to read-list.

Meditation Foundation Part two is now complete! Ready to move to part 3 tomorrow.

Gratitude journal

  • It's day 100 post-gaming!
  • Reading books and taking notes. The method increases my learning massively
  • The fact that mind can't think about 2 things at the same time.
  • Setting bike in a way that lets legs be fully extended, it eases the amount of work required
  • My friend for having an epic idea and with it a project that we can work on together
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